I know many stories like these. When I ask companies "Do you generate revenue via social media? Facebook, Twitter, G+ or anything?" the answer is always no. I would love to know about counterexamples if there are any.
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/08/30/11-social-media-marketi...
As anecdotal evidence, both of my late-teen/young adult sons have started using Old Spice deodorant since that campaign started.
Edit: I think Barak Obama's campaign would be another example of well-spent social media dollars.
Outside of that, well, um.... er...
EDIT: Further thought would suggest, Facebook, G+, Twitter, etc. That seems to hint that maybe the main business of social media is: spreading social media. Ruh oh.
It seems to be a self-perpetuating cycle from social media "gurus". Audi's manager of social media says "Today the equation to measure that doesn't exist" when asked about measurable results. So he (and much of the industry) claim that they just don't know, but it's probably doing something, and it can't hurt, right? So their clients/supervisors are scared of missing out and they continue to approve these gimmicks that, in my opinion, aren't very effective.
Twitter is perfect for raising brand awareness, dropping hints about the benefits of membership to non-members, and quickly resolving issues members are having.
We also use social media to position ourselves as being at the forefront of our industry by being the first to break news, RT things people wouldn't have spotted, provide practical advice and create debate via our blog, etc.
Works for us.
Fashion brands - yes, if it's a brand name that people are excited about sharing, and again regular purchases helps - people want to keep checking back for what's new
It's tough; I work with a lot of different retailers, everyone wants to believe that social media is going to be good for them, but it depends on both their business and their customers.
I see agencies pitch the miracles of social media and it often just doesn't pan out.
For example, consider a washing machine repair service, it's somebody you are going to use infrequently (hopefully!) and even though you might give a recommendation to your friends, it's not something that you'd associate with and steer your friends towards. In fact it's not really that helpful as it's highly unlikely that they would need those service right now.
Now think of a clothing boutique. It's a brand that's "cool", you want to let people know you go there. You go frequently, you want to tell you friends that you saw X and thought it was neat, or you bought Y. You share these events and other updates with your group, you are providing useful information and showing your tastes to your friends.
I'm not sure if there's a distinct work/not-work axis, but there's definitely categories of businesses and customers that work better than others.
I've literally stopped my SEO efforts.. most are just price checking anyways, looking for 'the lowest price'... I tend to find building a relationship and educating my potential clients better than trying to get a sale from SEO window shoppers
Want to know the result? My money goes elsewhere.
Also any money invested in SEO, as in building good content vs. SEO "tricks", usually has a bigger payoff than paid advertising.
1. If Coca-cola starts a social media campaign (and gets 1million likes) and Pepsi doesn't (0 likes), Coca-cola has a stronger brand position. Is this easy to calculate in real terms? No. But then again, Coca-cola nor Pepsi actually bottle their own products so they are measured on brand awareness anyways.
2. A friend of mine just started making custom bicycle wheels. He's gotten 3 new customers literally from our triathlon facebook group alone. Also, I would guess at least 5 people (probably way more) have had massages from a sports massage therapist in our club, simply because they posted on our group "I'm in need of a sports massage who knows a good one?"
"Social media" isn't necessarily a new way of driving business, but rather it's a new platform for capturing something that has been happening for decades - word of mouth - and then trying to position yourself (at scale) to exploit that word of mouth.
Though they use the Facebook pages, not ads, and the ones I know of that are doing great post stuff for women mostly :) (clothes, bags, nail accessories, beauty stuff, home decor).
Many generate 100% of their sales through Facebook.